Mickey Spillane - The Tough Guys

Past that the Bannermans came up again, but only in the society columns. There was one half page of notes and pictures devoted to the engagement of one Anita Bannerman to Vance Colby, a prominent realtor who had settled in Culver City some year and a half before.

When the library closed I went up the hill to Placer Street where the Culver Sentinel still turned out the only paper in town and walked in the bar in the next block, sat down and ordered a beer. A few minutes after five-thirty the place started filling up with thirsty types and it wasn't hard to pick out the news hawks in the crowd. But one was a guy I remembered well. He was a little weatherbeaten guy who had lost one ear when he and the old man had sailed the Turia II with a load of Canadian booze on board and the Coast Guard hard behind shooting with everything they had. The old man lost the boat and Hank Feathers had lost an ear and I had heard them laugh over the story many a time.

I waited until Feathers squeezed into what seemed to be a customary spot and ordered a drink, then I moved up behind him. I said, "If it isn't Vincent Van Gogh himself."

He put the drink down slowly, craned around and looked at me with the two meanest eyes I ever saw. Old as he was, there was a peculiar stance about him that said he was ready to travel no matter who it was. I grinned at him and the slitted eyes lost some of their meanness.

"That's what you get for sticking your head out a porthole," I said.

"Damn you, kid, only one man ever knew about that."

"And he liked to call you Van Gogh too didn't he?"

"Okay, son, who are you?"

"The bastard Bannerman. The old man used to tell you lies about my mother."

"Cat Cay! I'll be hanged." His face went into a broad, wrinkled smile and he held out his hand. "Yep, you got his eyes all right. And son, they weren't lies about your mother. I saw her. She was something." He grabbed my arm and pulled me to the bar. "Come on, drink up. Damn if we haven't got something to talk about. What the hell you doing here? I heard you were dead."

"Passing through, that's all."

"See the family?"

"Briefly."

"All slobs. Idle rich and they stink. The girl's okay, but the boys and the old man the world can do without. They got too many people in their pockets."

"Come on, Hank, who could they control?"

He took a pull of the drink and set the glass down. "It's not control exactly, it's just that they've been here long enough to know where the bodies are buried and can play the angles. The old man wants a bit in the paper . . . he gets a bit in the paper. He wants opening night tickets to the Civic Theater, he gets them. He wants his name out of the paper, he gets that."

"When does he want to be ignored?"

"Ha. Like when Theodore wrapped up two cars in a drunken driving spree and later when his old man had a statutory rape thing squashed for him and like when they interrogated everybody at the Cherokee Club after the attendant was killed. But not Rudy. He went home and no mention of him when everybody was listed in black and white. The power of social position, my boy, especially when wives try to climb the white ladder to the blue book and politicians need an in through an exclusive club in the state capital." He stopped and laughed. "But how about you? Where the hell have you been?"

I shrugged it off. "Ran away at twelve, tied in with a family of migrant bean pickers until they all died of the flu, latched on to a rancher in Texas who made sure I went to school, joined the Army . . . hell, I've been through the mill."

"You look it, son, you sure do." He cocked his head then, gave me a kind of sidewise look, his eyes studying my face intently and he said, "Damn if you don't look familiar. You do anything important?"

"I stayed alive."

"Well, you look familiar."

"I look like the old man, Hank."

He nodded slowly and finished his beer. "Yeah, I guess that's it, all right. Come on, have another beer."

"No thanks, I have to shove off. Look, I'll see you before I go."

"You better boy, or I'll come after you. Where you staying?"

I told him the name of the motel, threw some change on the bar, shook hands and walked out to the Ford. Things were looking up. The Bannermans weren't as pure as driven snow after all.

CHAPTER THREE

I had my own contact in Chicago and located Sam Reed who operated a horse parlor two blocks off The Loop. I told him to get me a rundown on what Matteau and Gage were doing in Culver City and after the usual stalling he told me he would. That is, if he could. I wasn't worried about it. One word to the right people and his tail would be in a sling so he'd be in there pitching to get off the hook.

Then I ate supper and drove back out to the estate.

Annie was like a little bird that night, chirping and flitting around me. She had baked all the goodies I used to like and made me try some of everything before I could get out of the kitchen. Miles, Rudy and Teddy had stayed in town attending to business, but Anita was upstairs in her room.

I tapped on the door, went in when she called and smiled at the lovely doll brushing her hair in front of the mirror. She spun, grinned and opened her arms so I could squeeze her right and said, "I've been waiting to see you all day."

"I've been busy, honey." I held her off and looked at her. "If I knew you were going to turn out like this I never would have left."

It was the wrong thing to say. The smile left her face and those great purple eyes were tinged with that funny sadness again. "Please, Cat."

I nodded. "Okay, kitten, I understand." I let her go.

"Vance has been good to me. It . . . hasn't been easy."

"Sure. But I just don't have to like it."

"I think you'll like him, Cat. He's respectable, dependable . . . and he's done so much."

"Like what?"

She turned back to the mirror, refusing to meet my eyes. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"Fine, honey, one word and no more. Whether he's a nice joe or not in your book, he isn't in mine. Anybody who would tolerate those hoods in this house is scratching me the wrong way. So it's your business and I'm not going to interfere, but something is screwy around here and when I go I'll know about it. What I do about it is another thing."

The brush stopped its motion, then she jerked it through her hair and threw it down on the dressing table. Without looking at me she said, "It isn't like when you left, Cat. They're my family. They're all I have. Please don't do anything."

I switched the subject. "You have a date tonight?"

"No . . . Vance is going to stay in town on business. Some property he's involved with."

"Then suppose we just drop the subject, take in a club, listen to some music, see a show and dance. How about it?"

Her smile was like music. "All right, Cat. I'll be ready in fifteen minutes."

"I'll be downstairs."

But I didn't go downstairs. I went along the balcony to Miles' room and pushed the door open. I took five minutes to shake down his place and wasted each one. He was a clothes hog, had expensive taste and had nothing tucked away that pointed to trouble.

Teddy's taste was a little more flamboyant. He had a gun rack on the wall with two shotguns, a rifle and six pistols. There must have been a dozen framed pictures of broads placed around, each professional studio shots of the show-girl types, each signed with endearing bits of garbage to their wonderful Teddy who had probably kept them in mink coats.

It was Rudy who was the image of his old man. The conservative type who liked the big-business front. I went through his closet, and desk and the dresser drawers, again coming up with the big zero. His bookshelves were lined with the latest novels, predominately historical, and a set of legal tomes, just the thing any clean-cut American boy would have around. The only thing out of place was an eight-by-ten photo of a well-stacked brunette in a stage bikini and it wasn't signed. The back was tacky with rubber cement and he had probably swiped it from a display somewhere. At least he showed an interest in broads. I put the picture back and went downstairs to wait for Anita.